Piran Is the Toast of All of Cornwall after Leading Rescuers to His Elderly Owner Who Had Fallen Down a Seventy-Foot Ravine Alongside a Cornfield

Piran Knew What Had Occurred Before Anyone Else Had So Much as a Clue

"The cat is very attached to her, and he was going back and forth in the gateway and meowing, so I decided to go and search the maize field."

-- Tamara Longmuir

Wadebridge is a sleepy little village in northern Cornwall with around seventy-five-hundred residents. Nothing much ever happens there and that is the way that the locals like it.

Nevertheless, early on Saturday, August 14th they did receive a little bit of unexpected excitement for a change. It was well worth the bother, however, because once the titillation had subsided it had a brand new hero in order to celebrate in the form of Piran, a black tomcat.

The commotion all began when thirty-eight-year-old farmer Tamara Longmuir was informed that an eighty-three-year-old neighbor of hers had mysteriously disappeared. This clearly was  matter for Dame Agatha to have investigated but since she, unfortunately, has been pushing up daisies ever since 1976, Longmuir had no alternative but to immediately drop what she was doing and organize an impromptu search for her.

"I went off in my truck to search our farm and fields but there was no sign of her," she later informed Sky News of London on August 16th. (See "Cornwall: First Pictures of Hero Cat Whose Meowing Helped Save Owner, Eighty-Three, Who Fell Seventy Feet Through Barbed Wire.")

Getting more and more frustrated as time wore on, she was pretty much at her wit's end until she spotted Piran sitting on top of a gate that led to her maize field. He also was clearly agitated about something or another.

"This is unusual," she related to Sky News. "The cat is very attached to her, and he was going back and forth in the gateway and meowing, so I decided to go and search the maize field."

As she soon found out, that proved to be far easier said than done. For starters, the maize was seven feet high. Secondly the only access to the field consisted of a small track around the perimeter.

She thus was forced to abandon her truck and to proceed à pied while all the time calling out the woman's name. That stratagem ultimately did prove to be successful but not exactly in the manner that she had intended.

The Ravine Was Easily Overlooked

"My cows could hear me calling and were mooing back," she confided to Sky News with, no doubt, a bemused grin. "I was hoping they would go quiet so I could hear."

That seemingly fruitless exercise did not go for naught, however, in that now she and everyone else in Wadebridge knows that it is far easier to locate a cow than a missing pensioner. The only tricky part is to be able to tell the difference between a cow mooing, a cat meowing, and a woman crying out for help.

Luckily for Longmuir, she ultimately was spared the daunting ordeal of wading through the stalks which not only attract all sorts of pesky insects but also can cut uncovered skin and cause it to itch like the bloody devil. "Just as I was going to go off and start going through the crop, I heard a very faint response to my calling," she continued to Sky News. "I then quickly realized my neighbor was down the seventy-foot ravine."

It might be more accurate to say that she had fallen through what au premier coup d'oeil looks more like an aperture in the earth shrouded in foliage than a ravine. By the time that Longmuir had reached her, she was not only lying in a stream but also had barreled through a barbed wire fence on her way down the steep embankment. 

It is impossible to determine from the photographs whether the fence was located at the top or the bottom of the ravine. It likewise is not known how long that she lay in the stream but speculation is that she could have been marooned there for hours. She was, quite obviously, conscious and, according to Longmuir, had come through her tumble unscathed.

Her rescuer was not nearly so lucky herself. "I came off worse than she did," Longmuir declared to Sky News.

That just goes to show that those old dowagers are a lot tougher than the young lasses of today. Even so, the woman not only was unable to climb out of the hole but apparently even to move.

Since neither she nor her rescuers have publicly commented on what happened, it is not known either what she was doing in the cornfield in the first place or how that she wound up at the bottom of the ravine. The most likely explanation is that she simply did not see the hole until after it was way too late and she was on her way down to the bottom.

There is, however, one other possible explanation. Although maize is nowadays grown primarily for food, animal feed, ethanol, syrup, and starch, it historically has had another more celebrated purpose and that is to make corn liquor.

A Stretcher Was Lowered Down for the Woman

It therefore is entirely possible that someone in the area has a working still in back of the cornfield. After all, moonshining still goes on in England just as it does in the United States. (See the BBC, April 9, 2015, "Plymouth Man Overcome by Home 'Moonshine'.")

The woman accordingly could have been out and about bright and early with the chickens in order to have gotten herself an eyeopener. As it so often happens in such cases, one pull on the jug just naturally leads to another and before she knew it she had staggered down a ravine.

That is, admittedly, a bit far-fetched but even so not totally out of the question, especially given that Cornwall is one of the so-called six Irish nations and Celts and corn go together like peanut butter and jelly. Besides, it would make for a much better story if it were true.

For instance, one can readily imagine the field day that the tabloids would have had with such a story. One headline might have read: "An Old Girl, Returning Home from Her Still, Staggers Down a Hole but Is Saved by Her Always Sober Cat."

Given the woman incapacitation, that necessitated the summoning of the Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service and its water rescue team, the Bodmin branch of the Cornwall and Devon Police, and an evacuation helicopter from the South Western Ambulance Service Foundation Trust. All totaled, twenty-five rescuers and twelve vehicles were dispatched to the scene.

Although the authorities certainly had more than sufficient manpower, equipment, and expertise, it still took them another two hours in order to get the woman out of the steep ravine. Finally, she "was hoisted back up to the field on a stretcher via line rescue," the Bodmin Force proudly announced August 14th on Facebook. "She was then taken to the hospital via Air Ambulance (a helicopter) in stable condition."

Whereas the woman had been trapped in an area where access was difficult, her rescue proved not to have been anything that the experienced emergency personnel who serve Cornwall could not handle. "Cornwall is a fairly rural county, so it is not unusual for us to get called to individuals who may need assistance and access is tricky," Eleanor Richards of the Bodmin Force explained to Newsweek on August 16th. (See "Cat's 'Persistent' Cries Save Eighty-Three-Year-Old Owner Who Fell Down Ravine.") "There is a lot of moorland and coastline to contend with so we work closely with our partner agencies and volunteer (organizations) to achieve the best result possible."

This particular rescue was novel, however. "I can't say that we've ever had assistance from a feline though..." she added. "That's a first!"

Her fellow officers were a good deal more forthcoming. "Piran the cat saved the day!" they wrote on Facebook.

She Was Brought Out Via Line Rescue...

It was Longmuir, however, who most accurately characterized Piran's invaluable contribution to the rescue. "Without the cat waiting at the gate to that field, it could have been hours later that I or anyone else would have checked in there," she told Sky News.

That certainly is true enough in that absolutely nobody in his right mind would ever want to search a maize field. In particular, it would have been necessary for emergency personnel to have gone through it row by row and that would have taken them until long after Longmuir's cows had returned home for the night. Otherwise, they would have been forced to have waited until after the maize had been harvested and that was hardly a viable option under the circumstances.

The hero cats and their derring-do that have been immortalized in the novels of Lilian Jackson Braun, Rita Mae Brown, and others may be fictional but Piran and a million others like him definitely do exist. They do not receive anywhere near the amount of ink and accolades that dogs do but that certainly does not mean that they are any less heroic and devoted to their owners and others.

For example, at 5 a.m. on  April 13, 2006 a black cat named Möhre alerted his owner, Dirk Prager, to the presence of an hours-old baby boy that had been abandoned on their doorstep at 13 am Emberg Straße in Köln. Given that the temperature outside was only 32° Fahrenheit, he might not have survived if it had not been for Möhre's heroics.

"The cat is a hero," Uwe Beier of the Köln Polizei declared. "Its loud meowing got the attention of the homeowner and saved the baby from suffering life-threatening hypothermia." (See Cat Defender post of April 21, 2006 entitled "Möhre Saves a Newborn Infant Who Had Been Abandoned in the Cold on a Doorstep in Köln.")

In late September of 2016, a two-year-old, blue-eyed, black, brown, and white part-Siamese rescue cat named Ivy from  tiny Tehkummah on Manitoulin Island, located on the Canadian side of Lake Huron, saved the arm of the town's sixty-nine-year-old reeve, Eric Russell, after he had gotten it entangled in a garage door that had malfunctioned. Although she lived across the street, Ivy nevertheless heard his frantic cries for help and alerted her owner who in turn summoned help.

Attending physicians afterwards informed him that if he had spent as little as an additional fifteen minutes with his arm entangled in the door that they surely would have been forced to amputate it. (See Cat Defender post of November 29, 2016 entitled "When Everyone Else Was Deaf to His Plaintive Cries for Help, Ivy Came to the Rescue of a Reeve Who Had His Arm Entangled in a Garage Door.")

Cats likewise are legendary to alerting their owners to conflagrations. (See Cat Defender posts of October 31, 2007 and November 30, 2007 entitled, respectively, "Bacon Shows His Appreciation and Love for His Rescuer by Awakening Her from a Burning Apartment" and "Cuddles Saves a Saskatchewan Family from a Blaze in a Faulty Fireplace That Destroys Their Home.")

... and Then Taken to the Hospital in a Helicopter

Deplorably, some selfish and uncaring owners do not even have the common decency to reciprocate. (See Cat Defender post of April 3, 2010 entitled "Lumpi Is Unforgivably Left to Die in a Burning Apartment by the Ingrates Whose Lives He Saved.")

They additionally have alerted owners to gas leaks in their homes. (See Cat Defender posts of April 23, 2007 and November 12, 2007 entitled, respectively, "Winnie Saves an Indiana Family of Three from Dying of Carbon Monoxide Poisoning" and "Winnie Is Honored as the ASPCA's Cat of the Year for Saving Her Family from Carbon Monoxide Poisoning.") 

No one is quite sure exactly how that they do it, but cats are renowned all over the world for their uncanny ability to detect cancer. (See Cat Defender posts of April 11, 2009, March 27, 2010, and April 20, 2012 entitled, respectively, "Tiger Saves His Owner's Life by Alerting Him to a Cancerous Growth on His Left Lung," "Taken In Off the Street by a Compassionate Woman, Sumo Returns the Favor by Alerting Her to a Cancerous Growth on Her Bosom," and "Grateful for Being Provided with a Loving Home, Fidge in Turn Saves His Mistress's Life by Alerting Her to a Malignant Growth on Her Breast.")

Cats also are able to anticipate diabetic seizures. (See Cat Defender posts of May 18, 2009 and April 21, 2012 entitled, respectively, "Elijah Teaches Himself How to Detect Low Blood Sugar Levels in His Guardians and Others" and "Adopted from a Shelter Only Hours Previously, Pudding Saves His Rescuer's Life by Awakening Her from a Diabetic Seizure.") 

Last but not least, some cats are capable of anticipating emphysema attacks. (See Cat Defender post of April 18, 2009 entitled "Blackie Stays Up Nights Monitoring His Guardian's Breathing for Emphysema Attacks.")

The salient point to be gleaned from all of those examples is that it would be unwise for individuals to place all of their trust in their fellow man, government, religion, modern medicine, and trendy technologies, such as cellphones and smoke alarms. A loyal and dependable cat is a far better option.

In fact, there are at least twenty perfectly good reasons as to why that keeping a cat is far preferable to having a woman. Moreover, if there should be any truth in that assertion, there surely must be at least twice that many valid reasons for women to prefer cats over men. (See Cat Defender post of February 17, 2018 entitled "Forget about Women! Adopting a Cat Is a Far More Rewarding Alternative for Some Guys Who Are Seeking Their Forever Valentines.")

In spite of all the wonderful things that they do as well as the faithful companionship and the boundless joy that they bring to so many people, cats are under sustained attack from seemingly ever quarter of the globe. Most notably, loudmouthed ornithologists, wildlife biologists, PETA, shelters, Animal Control officers, cops, and The New York Times all want them dead and gone.

Piran Is a Real Life, as Opposed to a Fictional, Hero 

The biggest threat that they are facing is coming however from those self-important, puffed-up egomaniacal monsters who rule the roosts in the degree mills and governmental laboratories and who are working day and night in order to eradicate the species through genetic manipulation. "Working with a primate is on the expensive side, but a cat's affordability and docile nature make them (sic) one of the most feasible animals to work with to understand the human genome," Leslie Lyons, a vile, scum-of-the-earth vivisector at the University of Missouri at Columbia, candidly admitted to U.S. News and World Report on July 29th. (See "Cats Might Be Purrfect Model for Human Genetics Research.") 

First of all, Lyons and her misbegotten ilk are, by her own admission, cheap and opportunistic predators of the worst sort. Secondly, they are welfare bums whose diabolical crimes are being financed by the tax dollars of the masses.

Predictably, Lyons' utterly indefensible proposal was roundly applauded and wholeheartedly endorsed by the totally unscrupulous, cat-hating capitalistic media. (See the Smithsonian Magazine, July 30, 2021, "Human Genomes Are Surprisingly Cat-Like," The Atlantic, July 28, 2021, "One More Thing We Have in Common with Cats," The New York Times, July 28, 2021, "The Unappreciated Importance of Cats to Medical Research" and, earlier, Yale Environment 360, February 9, 2021, "Assisting Evolution: How Far Should We Go to Help Species Adapt?") 

No additional information has appeared online regarding the pensioner so it is not known how that she is coming along although it is presumed that her stay in the hospital was a brief one. As for Piran, he was last seen on the day of the rescue standing all alone in a field. Supposedly he was being fed and cared for by the same woman who attends to his mistress.

Hopefully, Piran and his owner are back together again in their happy home. Given that cats are celebrated for their ability to treat the vicissitudes of life with equanimity, it is unlikely that he has allowed his newfound notoriety to have gone to his handsome head.

His fans therefore should not expect to see him turn up on either the rubber chicken circuit, the télé, or in motion pictures. Rather, he surely is content with having his guardian back home with him.

Besides, now that all the noisy firemen, policemen, and various rescue personnel have gone away, Wadebridge surely must have returned to its normally sedate nature. Living in Cornwall does have its distinct advantages.

For instance, before he was borne away on December 20th by the Grim Reaper, famed novelist John Le Carré resided in Saint Buryan, eighty-five kilometers south of Wadebridge and near Land's End. Although he certainly had more than enough moola to have lived anywhere in the world that he pleased, he instead chose Cornwall because it was, in his own words, as far away from London as a person could get and yet still be in England.

Photos: Tamara Longmuir (Piran) and the Bodmin Force (the ravine, stretcher, line rescue, and the helicopter).